Flawed Creation

Irongate campaign

The Flawed Creation setting takes place on the world of Varith, which was created by the primordials. For seemingly endless millenia, in keeping with their nature, they engaged in an endless cycle of construction and destruction. Ultimately, they created a world which was by far their greatest, involving a patience and attention to detail heretofore neglected.

Looking down from the Astral Sea, the gods were fascinated by what they saw, and gave the world permanency, protecting it from the primordials’ destructive nature. They then created the races, which were reflective of the gods’ strengths and ideals, but also their flaws as well.

After a time, the primordials were no longer interested in the creation of the world, and sought to tear it down, only to find it protected by the gods. The gods’ interference enraged the primordials, and soon the two sides of creation were at war. The gods prevailed, and those primordials who were not slain retreated to the Elemental Chaos.

The races flourished and built great empires, yet the pettiness and self-interest they had inherited from their creators manifested on a great scale, and a terrible war was waged between the humans of Bael Turath and the dragonborn of Arkhosia. Ultimately, both empires fell into ruin, and the effects of the war were felt by all races in all lands.

Viewing all of this from their Dominions in the Astral Sea, the gods were dismayed at the state of the world, judging it to be a flawed creation, and that their own natures were largely to blame. With great sadness, they agreed that it should be destroyed, that the lives they created should return to nothingness.

This time, it was the primordials who prevented the destruction of the world. Perhaps out of spite for the gods who had previously defeated them, the surviving primordials banded together and granted the world protection, much the same way the gods had done millenia before.

The primordials, though fewer in number and weaker in power, were able to emerge victorious, since several of the gods were reluctant to destroy what they viewed as their children, and fought halfheartedly or not at all. The world still suffered a great cataclysm, however, and the Prime Material plane of the previous era was sundered, creating the parallel planes of the Mortal World, the Feywild, and the Shadowfell. The surviving members of each of the races were cast into the three planes, and have since been influenced by the qualities of those planes, even to the point of being considered a separate race.

Vast amounts of knowledge were lost, and knowledge now tends to be regional, and often incorrect. And into this new climate, the fickle gods, unable to wreak the destruction they sought, once more seek to insinuate themselves into the lives of mortals. It is in the ruins of a bygone age that the world’s inhabitants find themselves, remnants of a Flawed Creation.